Strong Female Lead

Pushing Pause

2008-03-12T19:11:00.004-04:00

First of all, thanks to those of you who check in here to see if I've written anything new.

I haven't.

I've overcommitted. I've got lots of projects on the go, and I'm afraid my blog posting has suffered for it. It's possible I will figure out a way to make this a priority again, so I will leave the blog up and add links or posts, as inspired.

In the meantime, my advice is, if you're interested in this topic, you should go read this blog that I've recently discovered: womenandhollywood.blogspot.com

She covers a lot of the same ground (tho no posts on Canadian film and television I'm afraid!), and actually posts -- several times a week!

For stats, check out moviesbywomen.com

Away from Her

2008-03-04T15:58:00.004-05:00

Canadian actor/director Sarah Polley struck gold last night at the Genies, taking home 7 awards for her directorial debut Away From Her. She won for best picture, best director, and best screenplay, which she adapted from an Alice Munro short story about a couple coping with the wife's Alzheimer's.

Polley, only 29 years old, was Canadianly humble in her acceptance speech for best director: "The ridiculousness of me winning in this category is not lost on me. This is totally absurd."

Her stars, Gordon Pinsett and Julie Christie as the aging couple, took home the top acting awards. The film itself is more the husband's story than the wife's, though in the first half, Fiona is still cognizant enough often enough to understand what's happening to her. The strength of will that it takes her to decide it's time for her to enter a care facility is doubled when she turns down Grant's appeal "Don't go," as they pull up to the building, then writes him a note when he lingers: "Go now. I love you. Go now."

For a first film, there are some brave choices, including a broken timeline for the first half the film, presumably to evoke the jigsaw mind of someone entering the early stages of Alzheimers. There are many beautiful moments in the film, taking advantage of the Canadian landscape, but my favourite moment is indoors: one of the patients, a former play-by-play announcer, walking through the hall, dictates Gordon Pinsett's weeping heartbreak by the elevator.

Polley's been busy with acting roles (including Abigail Adams in USA network's John Adams miniseries airing later this month), but it's reasonable to assume these awards will give her the confidence and clout to move forward with another directing project. She'll have a lot more eyes following her for this one.

The Man Who Knew Too Much

2008-03-02T08:49:00.007-05:00

Watched this classic Hitchcock film last night and was frustrated by the blatant passive nature of the main female character in the film. The story is of a husband and wife travelling in Morocco with their young son, and through a series of events, the son is kidnapped.

Jimmy Stewart is the husband and Doris Day the wife. He's a doctor, she's a semi-retired singer. At every turn, he gets to make all the decisions and take all the action.

The classic is when Stewart's character, Dr. McKenna, gives his wife Jo a couple of sedatives before telling her their son has been kidnapped. "You know how you get," he says. And sure enough, she goes hysterical in his arms.

Then she's comatose as he does the initial investigation, and he has to drag her out of her stupor to take her from Morocco to London. She gets hysterical again at Scotland Yard.

When Dr. McKenna runs off to look for the boy, Jo is pointed in the right direction by a male guest, but once she arrives at the alternate location, she doesn't actually do anything - she just calls her husband.

Once they're together again, it's the good doctor who again comes up with the plan for her to leave and call the cops. When the cops arrive however, she's locked out of the building, powerless to do anything.

At the turning point of the film, she screams to distract the assassin, but it's Jimmy who gets to fight him. Then, in the final climax where they rescue the boy, it's once again Jimmy with the plan: she gets to sing, while he goes to rescue their son. He knocks down the door, then knocks the bad guy downstairs.

Meanwhile, the female kidnapper is tough for most of the movie, but in the last moments, is given a maternal instinct to protect the boy.

It would be interesting to trace female characters through Hitchcock's work. In To Catch a Thief, for example, the female figures drive the action, and one is the thief in question. I haven't seen Marnie, but it too revolves around a female thief. It's on this week on TCM, so I'll have a chance to check it out and report!

Lipstick Jungle vs. Cashmere Mafia

2008-02-28T07:50:00.005-05:00

Two sets of women are in a rumble on 5th Avenue, to determine the show to take the title of Sex and the City replacement. In one corner, Cashmere Mafia on ABC, co-created by Darren Star who co-produced SATC, Beverly Hills 90210, and Melrose Place.

In the other corner, NBC's Lipstick Jungle has the disadvantage of starting a few weeks later (it's only on episode 4) but will now catch up as CM has aired all 7 episodes it made before the writers strike began. Candace Bushnell, who wrote the book of the same name, and executive produces, is of course the author and co-producer of SATC.

The big names in each are Lucy Liu on CM and Brooke Shields on LJ. Of the two, Liu is so far more likeable, but Shields is doing a more interesting job in her role than she did on Suddenly Susan.

What I'm enjoying is how much the shows are focusing on the work worlds of the women. It's not just about their sex lives. However, each show has a story line about one of the women dating a billionaire, which in my mind undermines the whole point of having a show about strong, successful women.

These women want to WIN at everything, and that's great. How their male partners fit in is the lingering question. One character points out: "Men want to console you - they want to say 'Don't worry honey, you'll win next time.'"

Maybe I'm naiive, but Cashmere Mafia at least seems stuck in an earlier era of gender wars. One woman asks "Do you know how hard it is for men to be married to us? We are so far from their ideal wife." Really? Do modern men still expect all of them will make more than their wives? Odds are, they won't. A recent Families and Work Institute Study shows that of working married women, 48% provide half or more of the household income.

In a bizarre open letter to her ex (via an editor's column), Lucy Liu's character, Mia Mason, asks for the Modern Man to accept that women are going to be not just his office mates but his boss, and that "more women" will be entering the workforce.

?? This is a letter from 1978, not 2008!

But overall, there's more humour in Cashmere Mafia. In the last episode, Mia's boyfriend falls asleep on her in bed and she gets rejected as a dog guardian. By the end of the episode, she's dumped the BF and gotten the dog.

Or when one mom quits her job because she got passed over for a promotion, a male co-worker critiques her: "Typical move for a mommy - run back to the playground when things get too rough in the office." In response, she hits him in the head with her son's soccer ball.
Lipstick Jungle contains more over-the-top dramatics like writing "Bitch" on a fur, or spilling red wine on a competitor's desk. It uses harsher, darker colours and settings.

The shows definitely want to nail down what it is to be female in the 21st century. Mia says, "I just want [my relationship] to be easy. I just want to come first." Her friend replies, "Don't we all."

These "Don't we all" moments are dangerous - there is no such thing as What (All) Women Want. And yet, there is something irresistable in defining larger sociological trends. Says one woman: "It's the classic mother war: We make Stay at Homes feel inferior for being throwbacks for living off their spouses. They make us feel guilty for not eliminating everything from our lives but our children."

I was sad that the lesbian story line on CM was killed, especially since it was also an all-too-rare inter-racial relationship. (Interestingly, The L Word is a show that overcomes that taboo all the time. Maybe breaking down one barrier leads to breaking down another?)

There are several unrealistic moments, like a woman kissing another woman whose sexual preference has not yet been established - right on the street. And New York power women who can say yes to dinner the next night.

The strongest theme running through each show, which I think is the secret to these shows, is paying homage to female friendship. The characters may be let down by men, but never by their women friends. The women on these shows give each other advice, help each other in big ways and small, and generally have each other's backs. That these women are able to make time for each other in the middle of family and work obligations is a fantasy for most of us, but an appealing one. The success of shows like Sex and the City and Desperate Housewives suggests that if we don't have this in our Real Lives, it's something many of us crave, and if we can't gather our Real friends around us for weekly gatherings, at least we can gather our tv friends.

The only question is, which clique will prove more popular? CM had much stronger opening numbers (10.7 vs. 7.5 million viewers), but by the third ep, both have settled down to 5-6 million, both third in their respective timeslots. Are they splitting viewers, or are women trying on both groups of friends to see who they like best? Maybe this will tip the scale: Cashmere Mafia gives us four friends for our hour's investment, while Lipstick Jungle gives us only three.

Cody, Oliver, Jenkins

2008-02-25T06:06:00.000-05:00

Congratulations to Diablo Cody for winning the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. Her acceptance speech was gracious and sincere, and I wish her well following up all the hype with her next project. And even she admits that a lot of her recognition has come from "the cheesy backstory" of her research as a stripper. I'm hoping her new description in news articles will be "Oscar winner Diablo Cody" rather than "stripper-turned-screenwriter" Diablo Cody.

I actually thought Nancy Oliver's script and story for Lars and the Real Girl was more compelling and moving. For me, the characters in Lars were more emotionally nuanced than those in Juno. Ryan Gosling should have been nominated for best actor for his performance in the title role. And two great women help him move through the emotional and psychological box he gets trapped in. Lars' sister-in-law (Emily Mortimer) literally tackles him to get him to come out of his shell, and the doctor, played by the ever-wonderful Patricia Clarkson, who works with Lars, but also with Lars's brother Gus, to help him try to understand what Lars is going through, and come to terms with his own role in the family history.

Scene from Lars & the Real Girl

Of the three original screenplays written by women, the characters in The Savages are the least emotional accessible, though they are dealing with the painful life moment of placing a dying, demented loved one in a nursing home. Of course Hoffman and Linney are terrific in their roles, and the dialogue and situations do feel very "real," compared to some of the more playful moments in Lars and Juno.

The National Board of Review agrees with me - they awarded Oliver best original screenplay. The WGA, while also nominating Oliver and Jenkins, also went with Cody. Jenkins took home the Indie Spirit award.

Cody is not resting on her laurels. She's writing a television series for Showtime called The United States of Tara, about a woman with an identity disorder. Her film Jennifer's Body, about a demon-possessed cheerleader, is in production, and Universal has bought another script. Jenkins hasn't reported what she's working on next, though she hopes that it's not another nine year process between films.

After writing Lars, Oliver wrote and produced several of the complex tales that made up Six Feet Under. She's now working with Alan Ball on his new series True Blood, about a mind-reading bartender and her dealings with vampires, based on the novels by Charlaine Harris.

And while it's great to celebrate the women writers this year, the reality is that only 20% of the WGA's film members are women. And only 3 women have been nominated for directing in the history of the Academy Awards (Sofia Coppola for Lost in Translation, Jane Campion for The Piano and Lina Wertmuller for Seven Beauties).

What's been great is the mutual respect among the nominees. From Cody's speech:
I especially want to thank my fellow nominees because I worship you guys and I'm learning from you every day.

Having these nominees and winners helps women filmmakers out there learn that it's possible.

The Week the Women Went

2008-02-06T21:02:00.000-05:00

The production company Paperny Films claims their show The Week the Women Went (on CBC Monday nights) "looks at the roles of men and women in the 21st century. We are interested in what each gender does at home, at work and in the community."

But by picking a small town, the show has chosen a place where the career roles for women are more limited than their city-living 21st century sisters. Many of the men work for the oil companies, often gone for days or weeks at a time. The majority of women shown on the series stay home and raise the kids. A few help run family businesses. One works part-time at the post office, one at the library, a couple at the hospital, and two run beauty salons from their homes. One woman wanted to be a veterinarian when she was a teenager, but she got pregnant and has not yet made it back to school, though she works on their sheep farm. The single moms on the show have multiple jobs to raise their kids.

To be fair, the cost of living in cities is such that parents who want the option of staying home with their kids often have to work to pay for the city housing costs and lifestyle. And it would definitely be interesting to see how city-dwelling women would describe their male partners' contribution to child-raising and house-cleaning.

One of the teenage girls we meet says she plans to find out - she wants to get out of town the second she graduates from high school. She's also realized that having sex with the local boys isn't necessarily the best way to spend her time, especially if she wants to make sure she gets out.

What's eye-opening is that the show leaves no doubt that leaving the men home alone with the kids for a few hours, let alone a week, is for many of the women, an unusual occurrence, even in the 21st century. Several remark that this is the first time in years that they've been away from the responsibilities of childcare.

The bonding of the women while away from their daily duties is so-far an underplayed part of the show. One woman is working her way back into the group after gossip left her an outcast. When another woman falls in the water on a rafting trip, the group tries to rescue her, and comforts her when she gets back in. Seeing the men back in town get together to work on a community project brings home the point that the point of living in a small town is that you don't need to arrange bonding to get people to come together to help each other out.

While several of the women complain at levels ranging from of good natured to bitter about the lack of men's interest in child-raising or helping around the house, many of them also describe their strong partnership and mutual devotion.

In the first couple of days of the week, the men have so far projected that "It shouldn't be too hard" to do any any of the challenges they face -- what it will be like without the women, creating a gazebo for the town centre, or planning a wedding in a week. The question hanging in the air is whether their bravado will hold up as the week goes on and they have to put the kids to bed for more than one night.

Participants and viewers of the show have gotten a good discussion going over at the CBC blog. In one thread, a man asks when CBC will air a show on "The Week the Men Went"? A few of the female respondents reply that men always get to leave - for work, fishing trips, or just leaving their families. For many of the women on the show, this is their first, but hopefully not the last, chance to have some time for just themselves. I hope we'll see more of what they talk about and discover in this time on their own and with other women.

Women who Shone at Sundance

2008-01-29T07:19:00.000-05:00

Women directors picked up several of the top prizes at Sundance this year, and others picked up distribution deals.

Courtney Hunt's Frozen River won the Grand Jury Prize for Drama. Reviews for the film about smuggling illegal immigrants describe it as a "powerful must-see film" and domestic rights were purchased by Sony Classics.

Courtney Hunt celebrates with her Strong Female Lead Melissa Leo

Tia Lessin and her husband Carl Deal won the Grand Jury Prize - Documentary for Trouble the Water, their documentation of their first-hand experience of the New Orleans flooding.

Nanette Burstein's American Teen won the Directing Award for Documentary, and Paramount picked it up for $1 million. Burstein's first film On the Ropes had won Special Jury Prize for Documentary in 1997, and went on to be nominated for an Oscar. This year Lisa F. Jackson garnered that Special Jury Prize: Documentary for her hard-hitting The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo.

Meanwhile, in the World Cinema category, Anna Melikyan won the Drama Directing award for Mermaid, a dreamy fairy tale set in Moscow. Mermaid was the only Russian film at the festival. Irena Dol won for WC Documentary Editing of Pietra Brettkelly's The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins.

Although it didn't win any awards, Sugar, by Anna Boden with partner Ryan Fleck from Half-Nelson, was one of the most popular dramatic films, for its story of Dominican immigrants and their baseball star dreams. I was going to say it was probably the only film to get coverage at MLB.com, but Susan Koch's documentary Kicking It, about the Homeless World Cup, will be broadcast and distributed by ESPN.

Marina Zenovich made a splash with her documentary Wanted and Desired about the controversial filmmaker Roman Polanski. She cut two separate deals with Weinstein and HBO for distribution. A very different documentary Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North was purchased by PBS for its POV series. The film covers a trip taken by filmmaker Katrina Browne and extended family members, decendants of trade dealers, tracing the slave trade.

The comedy Hamlet 2, co-written by Pam Brady (South Park, Hot Rod) and director Andy Fleming, was snapped up by Focus for $10 mill in the biggest deal at the festival.

Japanese filmmaker Aiko Nagatsu won one of three Sundance/NHK International Filmmaker Awards for her film Apoptosis. Nagatsu received $10,000 and NHK's purchase of Japanese television broadcast rights. She'll also get help from the Sundance Institute for further financing and distribution.

125 features were selected (from 3,600 submitted!) for the 2008 Sundance festival. Of these, exactly one in five (25) were directed/co-directed by women. Nine more had a woman writer. However, 18 of the 32 films that were in competition had a woman as director (16) or writer (14). Of these, the great majority were documentaries. Only Hunt's Frozen River and Melikyan's Mermaid were in drama categories.

Oscar nominations 2008

2008-01-23T07:06:00.000-05:00

My friend Movie Moxie has several breakdowns of the Oscar noms. Congrats to the four female screenwriters!

As promised Monday, here is a list of the roles that earned nominations for the men and the women. For my description, I've tried to list their roles in order of dominance in the plot (or as far as I can tell from plot summaries of the films I haven't yet seen).

Performance by an actor in a leading role
(2 heroes, 2 anti-heroes, 2 pseudo-cops, 1 lawyer, 1 businessman, 2 family roles)
George Clooney in Michael Clayton - Attorney, fixer, and avenger
Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood - Miner, business owner
Johnny Depp in Sweeney Todd - Murderer, barber, widower, father
Tommy Lee Jones in In the Valley of Elah - Investigator, father, veteran
Viggo Mortensen in Eastern Promises - Bodyguard, hero

Performance by an actor in a supporting role
(2 criminals, 1 secret agent, 1 lawyer, 1 family figure)
Casey Affleck in The Assassination of Jesse James - Criminal
Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men - Assassin
Philip Seymour Hoffman in Charlie Wilson's War - CIA agent
Hal Holbrook in Into the Wild - Avuncular figure
Tom Wilkinson in Michael Clayton - Attorney

Performance by an actress in a leading role
(1 world leader, 1 pop culture figure, 1 student, 3 family roles)
Cate Blanchett in Elizabeth: The Golden Age - Queen
Julie Christie in Away from Her - Wife, love interest
Marion Cotillard in La Vie en Rose - Singer
Laura Linney in The Savages - Sister, daughter, writer
Ellen Page in Juno - Pregnant Teen student, daughter, love interest

Performance by an actress in a supporting role
(1 pop culture figure, 1 lawyer, 1 writer, 3 family roles)
Cate Blanchett in I'm Not There - Singer
Ruby Dee in American Gangster - Mother
Saoirse Ronan in Atonement - Writer, sister
Amy Ryan in Gone Baby Gone - Mother, thief
Tilda Swinton in Michael Clayton - Chief Counsel

The Year the Women Went

2008-01-20T20:39:00.000-05:00

The docu-drama show The Week the Women Went airs tonight on CBC, taken from a BBC show of the same title. It will look at what happens when all the women in a town abandon their posts and it's only the men left to run things. While the results of this experiment remain to be seen, a similar trend is playing out on the big screen right now.

I first noticed it in No Country for Old Men and Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, seen over the course of a single weekend. Although Devil includes a woman who comes between the brothers, she appears in only a few of the bloody testosterone-driven scenes. I thought No Country was barren of women, but that was before I saw There Will Be Blood this weekend, where females of any age are on the screen for maybe 10 of its 158 minutes. (A sharp contrast to Elizabeth Taylor's role in an oil epic from 50 years ago, Giant).

No Country and Blood are considered near-locks for Best Picture and Best Director in tomorrow's Oscar nominations, and Devil's Lumet will likely get a nod for director. Other Best Picture/Director nom favourites are Atonement, Michael Clayton and one of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Juno, Sweeney Todd, Into the Wild, and American Gangster.

Of course, male-dominated story lines are not a new phenom. As recently as 2005, ensemble piece Crash had to beat Capote, Brokeback, Munich and Good Night/Good Luck. But consider 2000, where SFLs like activist Erin Brockovich and the flying fighters of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon were front-and-centre, along with the softer heroine of Chocolat.

The biggest female this year is of course strong female teen Juno, but even the perceived "period chick flick" Atonement spends at least half of the film in a men-only war zone.

So what else is out there right now?
American Gangster = male cop vs. patriarchal mafia head
I am Legend = I am Will Smith for about 85% of the film.
National Treasure = Man on a Mission with a bit of help from the ex-girlfriend and ex-wife
Bucket List = Old Men Bonding
Into the Wild = One Man vs Nature
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly = Man Alone in His Head, and Overcoming Odds
Lars and the Real Girl = Man who can't handle real women, so romances a blow-up doll

One film I wouldn't place in this category is Eastern Promises. Although the focus is definitely on the male world of a crime family, it is Anna, the midwife, who is the catalyst for the story, who pieces together the tragedy of what happened to the mother of an abandoned baby girl, and what is happening to other women like her, lured from Eastern European countries. One clue that Anna is significant is that she appears on the poster.

There are a few other films with one woman with decent screen time (i.e. eligible for supporting actress):
Michael Clayton = Man out to avenge the death of another man has to take on female Bad Gal (Tilda Swinton)
Sweeney Todd = Singing Vengeful Murderer with a daughter (Helena Bonham Carter)
Charlie Wilson's War = Man who colludes with men to support men's wars - abetted and abedded by wealthy Texas woman (Julia Roberts)
I'm Not There = Experimental bio-pic of Man with inspired choice to use Cate Blanchett in one of the iterations of Dylan

As discussed in my coverage of awards season, there are foreign films like 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days and Persepolis that tell the stories of women. And smaller films like The Savages, Across the Universe, Away from Her or The Great Debaters, and at the other end of the spectrum, thrillers like Cloverfield, have balanced casts.

And then of course there are "chick flicks" like 27 Dresses, P.S. I Love You, or even the more elevated Broken English, which aren't usually about chicks achieving or even bonding, but about chicks on the path to get over one man and on to another.

So what's a female lead to do? Take a part in something like Mad Money and hope it doesn't suck? Act in and hope someone goes to see it? Go over to television? Write and direct your own film and hope that someone doesn't kill you because he's "having a bad day"?

I'll take a look at what roles are out there for women to play, after the nominations for best actress are reported.

Strong Female Cyborg

2008-01-18T07:37:00.000-05:00

**SPOILERS**

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Fox, Monday nights)

Wow! Fun! The Terminator series has always set the bar high for strong female leads (think Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor doing pull ups and then taking her psychiatrist hostage to kick off T2) She's back, in the title, in a new iteration, with an excellent addition!

Teenage John meets a girl at school, Cameron, and she is unfortunately shot by a terminator sent to kill him. When John is saved a few minutes later by a truck smashing into the terminator, we presume it's his kick-ass mom. But no, it's his kick-ass cyborg protector, Cameron the teenage terminator!

And when she said "Come with me if you want to live," I was all in!

We've seen other female action heroes in the last 2 seasons, but Cameron has one thing they don't: worthy enemies and the ability to fight them. When Cameron beats up some (admittedly obnoxious) teenage boys to get their clothes, it doesn't really seem like a fair fight. And perhaps that's my problem with the Bionic Woman. We know she can beat these guys - she's got a freakin' bionic arm. But when Cameron has to take on the bigger, older male terminators, that's a battle worth rooting for!

Like Claire on Heroes, we know that Cameron can survive being hit or stabbed or shot. But what makes her much more fun to watch is that she fights back. Claire seems relegated to getting beat up or killed, and then healing -- pretty passive for a hero.

Lena Heady as Sarah Connor and Summer Glau as Cameron

Cameron is anything but passive. In fact, Sarah has to reign her in from killing. Yes, Cameron has robot issues. Sarah calls her "the tin man." When Cameron shoots an old friend of Sarah because "He was possibly lying," Sarah asks "Why did you do that?" Cameron replies "Because you wouldn't." So an interesting dynamic is born of Cameron being able to push the envelope in terms of taking actions that even Sarah, with her unique moral universe, will not.

Sarah's ability to draw the line at not killing other humans is part of how she defines herself, and the theme of identity plays large in the show. Sarah and John have to change their identities all the time to stay safe. The second hour starts with Sarah ruminating, "Through it all I knew who I was and why I'm here." But now she feels she's gone too far, taken on one alias too many: "Maybe if you spend your life hiding who you are, you might finally end up fooling yourself."

After going through a lot of trouble, Sarah obtains new identities for the three of them. Again, this is a profound action for her: "A new identity, a chance - you can't put a price on that."

But by the end of hour two, she despairs, "I don't even know what my name is." Cameron doesn't hesitate: "Sarah Connor."

Cameron has no self-doubts wracking her. She says that John taught her the phrase "Know thyself and thou shalt know all the gods of the universe." But her version is this: "Know thyself because what else is there to know?"

But Cameron also knows the future. She knows how strong and brave Sarah and John can be and will be, even when they doubt. And for Cameron, it's clear who Sarah is. Future John has told her: "You're the best fighter he knows." Bring it on!

Awards Season

2008-01-14T06:16:00.001-05:00

Awards season pulls me back in!

The Golden Globes were announced rather than gala-ed last night, due to the Writer's Strike. Will the studios actually be so stubborn/greedy as to hold out to cancel ~~Christmas~~ The Oscars? (Academy board member Tom Hanks has urged the studios to get back to the negotiating table so that won't happen, but go ahead Dick Zanuck, blame it on the writers)

I was disappointed of course to see that Diablo Cody (Juno - pictured at left) lost out to the Coen Brothers (No Country for ~~Women~~ Old Men) for best screenplay. In most other awards, these two films are not in competition as No Country is an adaptation. In Best Musical/Comedy, Julie Taymor was up for Across the Universe but lost to Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd.

The National Board of Review of Motion Pictures had given Cody's script a tie with another female screenwriter Nancy Oliver for Lars and the Real Girl. They had also recognized Canadian Sarah Polley's Away from Her, Tamara Jenkins' The Savages, Mira Nair's The Namesake, and the late Adrienne Shelley's Waitress in the Best Independent Film category. They also co-conferred the "Freedom of Expression" award to the animated Persepolis, co-written and co-directed by Marjane Satrapi.

The New York Film Critics awarded Polley Best First Film, for her debut Away From Her and The Online Film Critics Society recognized Polley as Breakthrough Filmmaker. The Onliners also gave Cody the nod for best screenplay and New Yorkers gave Satrapi's Persepolis top Foreign Film honours.

Oscar nominations won't happen until January 22, but they have plenty of great women to choose from, as other announced nominations show. The WGA has nominated Cody and Oliver for original screenplay. Winners will be announced February 9. For documentary screenplay, three female co-writers were up: Elisabeth Bentley for Nanking (with Bill Guttentag & Dan Sturman), and Nicole Newnham and Bonni Cohen for The Rape of Europa (with Richard Berge).

Women abound in the Spirit Awards nominations (awards Feb 23). Tamara Jenkins (The Savages) is up for Best Director and Best Screenplay, and Julie Delpy (2 Days in Paris) for Best First Feature. The late Adrienne Shelly's Waitress is up for Best Screenplay, and three of the five nominations for Best First Screenplay are for women: Zoe Cassavetes (Broken English), Cody, and Kelly Masterson (Before the Devil Knows You're Dead).

Three women are also represented in Best Documentary category: Jennifer Baichwal's Manufactured Landscapes, Pernille Rose Grønkjær's The Monastary, and The Prisoner Or: How I Planned To Kill Tony Blair, co-directed by Petra Epperlein. Laura Dunn is one of three documentary directors nominated for the "Truer than Fiction" award for her eco-flick The Unforseen. Satrapi's Persepolis was nominated in the Best Foreign Film category.

Two of the three nominees in the Producers category are women: Alexis Ferris (Cthulhu and Police Beat) and Anne Clements (Ping Pong Playa and Quinceañera); and four of the pictures up for Best Feature have female co-producers.

Hiatus

2007-12-17T12:11:00.000-05:00

As may be apparent, Strong Female Lead is on hiatus while I'm on the road.

Grey's Anatomy at the mid-point

2007-12-05T08:17:00.000-05:00

How much am I loving Erica Hahn? She's great at her job, and has no tolerance for all the gossipy flirty silliness that makes up so much of the interactions between the supposed professionals on the show. She's actually focused on her surgeries instead of batting her eyelashes across the operating table.

Here's just a taste from the latest ep:

"I'm sure whatever you're talking about is endlessly interesting, but I had my heart set on saving a life today."

Telling Sloan off: "I came to you because you're supposed to be the best in plastics. But If bad jokes and sleazy come-ons are all I'm in for all afternoon, I'll go to whoever's second best."

Again to Sloan, who tries to bond: "I'm not looking for a window into your soul."

I'm sure eventually she'll fall in bed with someone (a woman?), but I'll enjoy her while it lasts!

Even better, Hahn's appearance has brought a full-force return of Yang's ambition, without any romantic overtones to water it down.

And Bailey is trying to lay down the law as well, in her much deserved ascent to Chief Resident. I had mentioned earlier this season that part of her strength is her mystery, as we never see her home life. But it looks like that may change, as we saw her at home with the baby and husband this episode.

Her quote of the episode: "My hands are smaller than a man's but my brain is much bigger, trust me."

As for the rest of them, ugh. So over Lizzie demanding that George make her happy, Grey demanding that Dreamy fix her, and Grey Jr. demanding the world pay attention to her. Callie has been amusingly snarky, but mostly sidelined, and worryingly optimistic that George and Lizzie won't work out (so she can have him back?? Please, you can do better!!).

Basically, if it weren't for Hahn, Yang, and Bailey, I might have given up on the show, as so many others have done. Thank goodness for fast-forward, so I can skip colliding ambulances and blood geisers!

Four for the Price of One?

2007-12-03T14:42:00.000-05:00

EW made the bizarro choice of acknowledging the rock-star women who lead four amazing shows in their Top 25 Entertainers of 2007, but grouped them all as one entry?

But how exciting is it that a WRITER won the year?! First time ever, and well-deserved!

Dang, this reminds me I still haven't seen Damages yet - guess now I'll have to grab it to watch over the holidays...

Women writing Violence

2007-11-29T05:31:00.000-05:00

I'm just finishing a great book called Zen and the Art of Screenwriting: insights and interviews by former UCLA prof Willaim Froug. As the title implies, there are several interviews inside, including one with Callie Khouri, who wrote Thelma & Louise.

Froug asks her about the possibilities for women writers, and her response is very telling:

As long as violence and sex are the hottest-selling ticket, I doubt that women are gonna be making great strides, because we’re not schooled in violence in the same way men are…

There’s a lot of violence specifically directed to a male audience, things that have a certain amount of appeal to their base instincts. But it’s not there for women. There’s not violence that’s specifically directed to a female audience. I think that Thelma and Louise had a kind of violence, even though I don’t think of it as violence. Even blowing up the truck wasn’t really violent. They way they took the driver out of the truck – they didn’t kill him, they didn’t shoot him in the knee. You see those kinds of things in other movies all the time. I was shocked to hear Thelma & Louise referred to as violent.

I decided to do a little research and came up with only a few examples of violent films written by women:

Debra Hill was the Queen of the genre. She co-wrote the original Halloween, Halloween 2, 5, 6, H20 and Resurrection. She also co-wrote The Fog (1980). She was also an impressive producer not only of the Halloween franchise, but in a variety of genres (from Big Top Pee Wee to World Trade Centre.) [Hill died in 2005]

Fran Walsh co-wrote The Frighteners, a horror film, and also Heavenly Creatures, which involves murder by teenage girls. But this is a single act in a film much more interested in the relationship between the girls. (she also co-wrote the Lord of the Rings series, and King Kong 2006).

Patty Jenkins wrote Monster, the true story of a rare female serial killer.

Another writer who has looked at an unusual (fictional) serial killer is Melissa Rosenberg, executive producer of Dexter. She has written a few episodes, as has newcomer Lauren Gussis. In Canadian television, Laurie Finstad-Knizhnik created the violent Durham County after writing on Cold Squad.

Pamela Wallace received the Academy Award for Witness, which contains violence and suspense, but again, the focus of the film is on relationships.

Anyone else got a name to add to the list? Khouri herself has followed up T&L with Something to Talk About, and an adaptation of YaYa Sisterhood.

So I think Khouri is still right, that women are not writing violent films, but these films are not necessarily still the "hottest ticket." If you look at the top 50 grossing films of 2007 so far, only 10 of them are violence/horror -focused:

Bourne Ultimatum
300
Live Free or Die Hard
American Gangster
Ghost Rider
Disturbia
Saw IV
Halloween
Resident Evil: Extinction
Premonition

Of these, the only woman writer involved is Debra Hill, who gets a credit on Halloween, as she co-wrote the original.

What about the other 80%? If comedies and relationships make up the balance, how many women are involved in these? In the next couple of weeks, I'll look at all the top movies of 2007 and let you know how many were penned by women.

[edited Dec 9]

Brothers & Sisters and babies

2007-11-26T07:17:00.000-05:00

A few eps ago, Kitty found out she's pregnant, but then lost the baby. Her fiancee Robert, who is running for President, is relieved, as the timing would have made things tough for him. However, Kitty, seemingly having lost every modicum of common sense and the savvy that makes her his PR manager, decided she wants them to try again to have a baby -- as soon as possible. Really? You couldn't wait say til at least after the primaries to see what your work load it going to be? Robert pretends he thinks this is a Really Good Idea too.

And though Kitty is on paper still Communications Director for a presidential campaign, she spends the entirety of this episode getting dance lessons and picking out a wedding dress -- for like the third time this season. I'd like to see her on the blackberry at least while she's doing all this, taking some interest in the campaign...

Meanwhile, sister Sarah, CEO of the family company, lost a custody fight for her children, apparently because she was the primary bread earner and her partner was the stay-at-home dad.

Brother Tommy does have a baby, but his wife Julia, depressed at losing the baby's twin, went off to convalesce with her parents. Tommy, feeling abandoned and frustrated, decided having an affair with office manager Lena would be a Really Good Idea. His business partner, who had a long-running affair with Tommy's father, told him in no uncertain terms that she wouldn't tolerate it, and he finally breaks it off.

In this ep, Lena decides that dating Tommy's brother Justin, who is in recovery for drug addiction, would be another Really Good Idea. Is it revenge or is she actually attracted to him? Does she have a "top" in mind that she's sleeping her way toward?

Julia returns home this episode, happy again and clueless about the affair. Her role up to this point has been completely tied to emotions around making the baby (through IVF with one of Tommy's brother's sperm!) and the death of her second baby. She is a teacher by training, but so far it looks like she'll be a stay-at-home mom. Which is fine, but I'm hoping that once the affair is inevitably revealed, her reaction to that -- hopefully something more interesting than running back to her parents -- will finally give her character some definition.

And now that Mama Nora has passed the crisis of adult baby Justin's relapse, she can focus her energies on dating Chevy Chase! More happy casting by this show! (and bonus Lyle Lovet moment this ep!)

(We can only hope the AMPTP can pony up to the bargaining table with a reasonable offer so these stories can keep coming.)

Reinventing the Women of Sci-Fi TV

2007-11-23T06:30:00.000-05:00

I've got an article up at Den of Geek on the failure of US Network television to follow Battlestar Galactica's lead in creating Sci Fi women characters of enough depth.

Clearly I'm psyched for this weekend's premiere of the 2 hour BSG special Razor on Space and SciFi (simulcast Sat 9 pm EST). I was reassured to read that although the episode will revolve around the actions of ice-cold Helena Cain, Admiral of the Battlestar Pegasus, the story will be told in flashback, so we'll get to see all our fave characters... <> Starbuck < /sigh > (That's my Geek move of the day!)

Lust, Caution

2007-11-22T09:11:00.000-05:00

[Pseudo Pspoilers follow]

Ang Lee's gorgeous new film Lust, Caution (Sie, je) winds its way through themes of subterfuge, choice, identity and betrayal.

When the film opens, the lead, Wang Jiazhi (in a knock-down performance by Wei Tang), is a school girl in Japanese-occupied China. She is invited to join a political drama group and proves to be an adept actress. Her skills as an actress come in handy as the group moves on to infiltrate the lives of the Yees, a wealthy couple who are collaborators, with the intention of assassinating Mr. Yee.

Jiazhi's transformation from school girl to sophisticated seductress is amazing. She fully adopts her new persona, and we only see her once more in her everyday personality. The only way I can grasp her character and the choices she makes is to believe that in the years in her role, however, she comes to believe it is her true self.

Because we know of Yee's bloody ruthlessness, we know that Jiazhi is in constant danger, and must be a consummate actor under a variety of stressful circumstances, including hiding the affair from Mrs. Yee and her circle of friends.

We are all actors of one kind or another, and certainly there is a long tradition of women "faking it" in bed to make a man feel powerful. (or just to get it over with...) But so much is left ambiguous in the film. Does Jiazhi have any true physical attraction to Yee? Or is she full of disgust, as she claims to be to her fellow conspirator Kuang, with whom it is clear there is a mutual physical attraction? Most intriguingly perhaps: if she is attracted to Yee, does this lessen her bravery?

Jiazhi's final choice at the end of the film puts into question all of her actions up to that point. And most frustratingly, for me, upends and even erases everything that has passed before. This is me, moaning quietly in the theatre as the credits roll: "Noooooooo!"

Bionic Woman - a man in the picture

2007-11-19T12:56:00.000-05:00

After the pilot, this show felt very slow-paced, especially compared to an adrenaline-fueled show like Alias. Some episodes even had flashback - ugh.

The action scenes were always rocking (though I'm a little specious of her ability to leap from the ground to the top of a building), but I found myself fast-forwarding through talking scenes. (which is the opposite of several other shows, where I'm much more interested in the human drama and banter than the blood-spillage.)

I think the writers have caught on though, and are taking themselves less seriously, allowing some fun in to over-ride the ultra-serious lab crowd. In the last couple of episodes, I've become almost as interested in Jaime's conversations as I am in her kick-boxing moves.

It helps that they've pulled back from the politics at the lab and brought in a relaxed cute CIA Agent, Tom. This was definitely a mid-season decision as he's not listed in the original materials. The introduction of CIA Agent Tom as a partner/love interest could have gone very wrong. But I think it's succeeding - it gives her someone to verbally spar with, however heavy-handed that may come across at times.

He's a far better foil than her sister or any of the guys back at the lab. And I'm enjoying the comedic effect of his self-titled "chivalrous" attempts to protect her. As Antonio says to him "You're in so far over your head and don't even know it."

In their first operation together, he's all "I'll go down - you stay here and cover me." Jaime warns him "Don't underestimate me..."

Next ep, she chastises him, saying she's not a "trophy spy." When he's unable to kick down a door, she "helps" him. His response is a classic "I loosened it."

The conflict heats up when he says "I'm going in alone... It's too dangerous."

Jaime snaps back "You may think you're being a gentleman but it's condescending. Get over yourself."

Actions speak louder than words and he finally gets it, even though she tries to take it back, saying she didn't mean it:
Him: "Clearly you can kick some ass"
Her: "I can"
Him: "You can."

Compelling, eh? But then he has to make sure we know what's really important: "God you're beautiful." Gag.

At the beginning of this episode (107 - Trust Issues), Jaime's partner Antonio warns her, "Relationships and counterespionage don't mix."

And he has a point - she's so busy chatting up Tom on her cell phone that she forgets to watch the briefcase she's supposed to be following. Thank god her bionic eye helped her find it again.

The humour continues when she kicks the butts of the CIA agents sent to "check up" on her.

Tom's overprotectiveness rears its head again in the form of chasing down Jaime to an assignment and yelling at Antonio for sending her out without a gun. But even Jaime has her biases - when Antonio says the assasin is a woman, she repeats, surprised, "Her?"

By the end of the episode, Jaime is in Tom's arms crying, "I can't do this. I'm not cut out for this." She's gonna have to toughen up, and everyone at the lab knows it.

Her tears are because they've now killed off the second moderately important character (at the hand of a female assassin, no less!). I admire that, because it means that no one (with the exception of Jaime herself of course) is safe. That's a good thing to keep us on our toes instead of presuming all the good guys will make it out OK.

Journeyman Ep 7

2007-11-08T06:38:00.000-05:00

You might think a show with the word "man" in the title would be no place to find a SFL. And unfortunately you'd be right.

The show revolves around reporter Dan Vassar, who suddenly develops the ability to travel through time, apparently to help other people at important junctures in their lives. And when I say "revolves around" I mean it. It's all about him.

Dan is part of a love quadrangle made possible by his time travel. In the past, his wife Katie, dated his brother Jack, and Dan was engaged to a woman named Livia, who died in a plane crash. When he travels back in time, he often visits scenes from the past of the foursome. It can get a little awkward -- in the best possible way, which makes it the most interesting part of the show, as the actual changing people's lives plots aren't that stunning.

In the pilot episode, the moment I became most intrigued with the show was the moment Livia shows up. I was captivated by her sudden appearance as a fellow time-traveler, and was hoping we'd get to follow her story too, see what she's been up to, time-hopping for the last 6 years, see the bigger picture of what the time travel is all about.

Instead, Livia seems to just hang out waiting for Dan, but she doesn't really help much. Finally in the most recent episode (107 - "Double Down"), she does take the bold action of driving a car to help him get away.

I presume she knows more than she tells Dan, but she remains cryptic about what their role is and how it all works. In the third episode, she reveals that she had been time traveling before she met him, and then when they were together, she stopped for a while, until she traveled before her plane went down. Which leaves lots of questions: Is her only job to help him? What does she do when she's not hanging around waiting for him?

One problem is there's no sexual tension at all between Dan and Livia. And we've never really seen him as someone worth mooning/fighting over. The potential to cheat is purely theoretical. Instead of seeing an emotional struggle, this episode features a ridiculous literal fight between current-Dan and past-Dan. And there's the moment when she finds out that he married Katie. Although she now seems to be glued to Dan as he zips around in the past, apparently she never travelled to a moment in his life when she would observe Dan's current married with child state?

In this episode, we finally get to follow Livia somewhere, but yet again, it's All About Dan. She pops into Dan's current-day house to spy on Katie and get Dan's money. Sigh. But at least she's doing something useful.

Which is more than Katie gets to do. A reporter in her own right, the last 2 eps have focused around her basically asking Dan's PERMISSION to go back to work as an anchorwoman. Talk about time travel!

In this ep, fulfilling the role of these two women to help and save Dan, time-travel Livia helps current-Dan help past-Katie save past-Dan from his self-destructive gambling problem.

The other figure in the love quad, brother Jack badgers Katie to find out what's going on with Dan, as he can see it's taking a toll on her. Though he presumably has a continued emotional tie to her, it comes across as bullying, which is too bad, because he could do it in a gentle way, that would make him more appealing as a character instead of making sure we don't root for him. But you know what, I'm annoyed enough by Dan that I now appreciate Jack turning on him.

Tellingly, the photos of Katie (Gretchen Egolf) and Livia (Moon Bloodgood) on the official website are of them posing and vamping. Note to writers: you've got two great women available - use them.

Blood Ties

2007-11-02T05:39:00.000-04:00

I watched the fun two-part pilot of this show back in August, and caught a couple eps after that. For Halloween, I watched a few episodes on my PVR and remembered how much I enjoy this show.

The set-up is detective show. Vicki Nelson (Christina Cox ) works cases with and in conflict with her ex-partner on the police force, Mike (Dylan Neal), who is also an ex-lover.

Vicki's assistant Coreen, was her first supernatural-case client - her boyfriend was killed by a vampire/demon. At first Vicki is tough to convince, but by the end of the pilot, she has encountered dark supernatural forces first-hand, including being branded by the demon herself. And she has made a new partner in Henry, a 350-year old vampire investigating the murder himself to keep dark forces at bay.

The production values are decent for scifi, and very importantly both Cox and Schmid are hot hot hot. (sorry Dylan -- on a supernatural show, you're vanilla. Which is how Vicki feels too I think - once you've tasted the kink, it's tough to go back...). The chemistry between them is hot. The first time we see Henry, he's in bed, using his vampire ways for mutual sexual satisfaction. Later, Vicki lets him suck her blood to save his life, and they are bound together. Henry is very much the ladies' man, but always puts his woman of the week aside to help Vicki when she calls. Meanwhile Mike is super-jealous and over the course of the first season, learns the truth about who Henry is, which increases their mutual distrust.

The competitive sparks between Mike and Henry over Vicki, which might on another show feel silly, are fun to watch, because Vicki truly is shifting her alliance, and she's not an airhead. She is a tough fighter and can kick butt without Mike or Henry's help. Together, Vicki and Henry are a formidable team. One personal reason I like Vicki is she's practically blind without her glasses (though the writers forget this occasionally). I'm not positive, but I think her eye condition is why Henry can't mesmerize her with his vampire eyes. Or maybe it's her strong mental powers.

Season two is showing on Lifetime, where you can supposedly watch recent eps. But I can't get it to load - probably because I'm in Canada, and you've got to watch out for those tricky Canadians. Ditto iTunes. Space is also showing season one on Friday nights. Canucks can catch the show on CityTV Sunday nights in East/Central, Wed for Pacific and Thursdays Mountain. Some people wonder why it's hard to find a Canadian audience. Others wonder how the Canadian audience even finds the shows.

You can learn more about the show and keep an eye on where to find it at writer Dennis McGrath's blog.

Based on books by Tanya Huff.

Can Kristen Bell save Heroes?

2007-10-29T09:01:00.000-04:00

The eagerly-anticipated arrival of Kristen Bell (of Veronica Mars fame) to Heroes this episode seems to herald a brighter day for the show, which has squandered an amazing first year.

Kristen's character Elle is called "the little blonde" and "a little girl" but then she up and electrocutes someone. She's not allowed to continue in this bad-ass vein though. Oddly, she calls her dad and he yells at her for killing the guy, so she has to come home before she can finish her assignment. Who's her daddy? I'm guessing the new head of The Company, Bob.

Another new potential SFL is Monica, Micah's cousin. She's just finding her powers, which are apparently the ability to do anything herself once she's seen someone else do it.

She works in a fast food restaurant, but wants more from life. She says, "I've been praying to God to give me a sign, to show me what to do with my life." She's wary of her powers, but her confidence is growing. I was dissapointed that after kicking the ass of a bad guy in the last ep, this ep she declines to try out her skills on the basketball court and chooses instead to... jump rope.

I'm curious why Monica has only developed her powers in the last few days. Was it Mika who turns on her powers? Given the family powers, I'm guessing the grandmother has some mad skillz that she's keeping secret for now.

The biggest bad-ass of them all, Nikki/Jessica, showed up finally after being MIA the first few episodes. She's always been an interesting character. The trying-to-be-Good Girl, Nikki (who was working for an erotic internet site, so maybe not soooo good!) has an alternate personality, Jessica (the name of her dead sister), who comes out to do the things Nikki can't, like beat people to a pulp, sleep with people to get what she wants, and even kill.

Last episode, Nikki only dropped off her son Micah with her grandmother, and then went in to ask the Company to "cure" her. Jessica gets out this episode and lashes out, but she is quickly put down.

Bob tells her "You have a terrible affliction. But we're going to get you well."

Hearing this, Suresh tries to rescue her: "Nikki you're a prisoner."

"No," she replies. "I'm sick... what I've done, what I'm capable of. These are the only people who can help me."

Now Multiple Personality Disorder in real life is serious business, but within the context of the show, I find it a great metaphor for a Strong Female Lead. Jessica is physically stronger, and more successful at getting what she wants, but Nikki's strength is her morals and her attachment to her son, which Jessica doesn't share. But the idea that she has to be "cured" of the side of her that actually gets things done, and has saved her life and Micah's several times, is troubling. (though of course the murderous tendencies of Jessica are also troubling...) So once again we're back to a false choice between physical strength/life competency and emotional competency.

Maybe I'll just watch every other week - cuz Claire's big story line is sneaking around with a boy behind her dad's back, and the new Honduran hero, Maya, just confuses me. She kills people by crying blood tears, then she feels sorry and cries real tears and they come back to life. More of a curse than a power. And if they'd they'd move the fast-forward-triggering Hiro story line to the other week, that would suit me just fine.

EDubb's Butt-Kicking Babes

2007-10-23T08:41:00.000-04:00

Entertainment Weekly has corrected its list of Butt-Kicking Babes to add the unfathomable oversights of Buffy and Sydney.

Ugly Betty

2007-10-22T07:38:00.000-04:00

There are many ways in which Ugly Betty's title character is not strong, but she is resilient. Even when people make fun of her, and things don't go her way, she keeps her positive spirit, and keeps plugging along, saving the butt of her boss Daniel, the editor of Mode magazine. The people on the show who grow to respect her instead of mock her are generally "the good guys."

Betty's true strength is her values. Unlike the majority of people on the show, who do whatever it takes to succeed, Betty rarely abandons her values of honesty and loyalty. (although in this week's episode she takes credit for a story that isn't hers, because she doesn't think hers is interesting enough).

Betty: "Damn it, why do I have to be so sweet?"

Someone who doesn't have to ask this question is Betty's complete opposite, Wilhelmina Slater, the creative VP of the magazine. She has risen in the ranks at Mode, with the sole ambition of being editor of the magazine. She was passed over by the owner, Bradford, who appointed Daniel, his son.

Since then, she has done anything in her power to try to reverse that decision. She has used blackmail, tried to have people killed, and as a last resort, faked an interest in Bradford. So far she has succeeded in becoming engaged to Bradford, but her role as editor remains out of reach.

"I was a simple girl with an evil plan," she says in this episode, thwarted again. She is associated with fire, a she-devil, aka bitch. So is a bitch a Strong Female Lead?

I submit, yes. She is morally weak, but in all other ways strong. In a show about ambitious people, Whilhelmina surpasses them all. As she says in an understatement this episode, comparing herself to Bradford's first wife, who took more interest in alcohol than the business: "In case you haven't noticed, I'm a career gal."

She knows what she wants and she's going after it. When Bradford man-handles her, she pushes him away. "Uh uh, business first."

It's revealed in this ep that she transformed herself with the help of the former female editor, from mousy assistant Wanda into super-model Wilhimina: "I put my blood, sweat and old nose into this place."

The price of course has been emotional iciness. The only time she has shown emotion has been for her daughter, who she ships off to boarding school so she will not be a distraction. She does however make small gestures to two faithful underlings (saving Marc from being fired, or in this episode, offering Amanda information about her father). But she refuses to ever acknowledge that she has done something nice, and usually acts only under duress of blackmail from them).

The show is further exploring what it means to be a woman through a character who has undergone M2F sex reassignment surgery. This is Daniel's sister Alexis (formerly Alex). Unfortunately, these attempts are rather clumsy and stay on the surface of gender issues. Two episodes ago, Alexis spent a lot of time playing with her boobs. In this episode, she struggles with makeup, blouse buttons, heels and feeling inadequate.

Daniel: Are you crying?
Alexis: I'm a girl. I'm allowed to now.

Meanwhile, this is Wilhimena:
"Even if I wanted to express sympathy, I physically can't."

The first made me wince. The second made me laugh. And that's the beauty of Ugly Betty.

“Girls Gone Genre” panel

2007-10-19T14:13:00.000-04:00

As a kind of follow-up to my post about women in film, here's another take from TV writer Lisa Klink regarding a panel she participated in at La Femme Film Fest, called “Girls Gone Genre”:

The panelists (myself, Marti Noxon, Laeta Kalogrides and Rita Hsaio) agreed that there is rampant sexism in Hollywood, more pronounced in features than television - but that the real decision makers (as opposed to the wannabe posers) care a lot more about competence than gender. If you’re good, the people who matter will recognize it. The Genre Girls also concurred that despite the fact that women do face longer odds, bitching about it won’t get you anywhere. Putting that energy into becoming a better writer will.

Fair enough.